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EBERHARDT RECHTIN
1926â2006
Elected in 1968
âFor developments in missile and space technology.â
BY WANDA M. AUSTIN
EBERHARDT RECHTIN was assistant director of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); Assistant Secretary of Defense;
chief engineer of Hewlett-Packard; president and chief executive
ofï¬cer (CEO) of The Aerospace Corporation from 1977 to 1987;
professor of industrial and systems engineering, aerospace
engineering, and electrical engineering systems at the University
of Southern California (USC); and a principal proponent of
making system âarchitectingâ a profession. Dr. Rechtin died on
April 14, 2006, at the age of 80.
The adjective âvisionary,â which is sometimes used to
describe the careers of pathbreaking engineers, could scarcely
be more applicable than in recounting Rechtinâs achievements.
He was a principal architect of NASAâs Deep Space Network,
which ultimately enabled us to communicate with distant
planetary spacecraft, and his contributions to the ï¬eld of systems
architecture are used by engineers throughout the world.
During his presidency at Aerospace, the Global Positioning
System (GPS) was ï¬rst activated following many years of
research and development. Rechtin realized the possibility that
GPS could be used for much more than its initial military and
defense applications; today, GPS is used in virtually every facet
of our daily lives. Above all, Rechtin was ï¬rmly committed to
applying his considerable knowledge and skills to improving
199
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200 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
and maintaining the defenses and national security interests of
the United States. He considered these efforts his personal
contribution to securing democracy against totalitarianism.
Rechtin was born January 16, 1926, in East Orange, New
Jersey, the son of a naval architect and a marine engineer. He
received his B.S. (honors, 1946) and Ph.D. (cum laude, 1950) in
electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology
(Caltech). He served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946 and
remained an ofï¬cer in the Naval Reserve until 1958.
In 1948, while still working on his doctorate, Rechtin began
work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) JPL, where he remained until 1967. His tenure at JPL
coincided with the dawn of the Space Age, and his work on the
Deep Space Network was complemented by his participation
in other NASA projects. The Deep Space Network is a worldwide
array of large-dish antennas that can track radio signals that
originate millions of miles away in space. The network became
operational in the early 1960s and was used to help transmit
images from the Moon during the Apollo landings. Rechtin
remained a lifelong advocate of space exploration, insisting that
humans had reached a point in history at which they needed
to be part of a system greater than anything here on Earth.
In 1967, Rechtin became the director of the U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD) Advanced Research Projects Agency, which
was later renamed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA). He subsequently held posts as principal deputy in
the ofï¬ce of Defense Research and Engineering (1970) and
assistant secretary for telecommunications (1972).
Rechtin left DOD in 1973 to become chief engineer at Hewlett-
Packard, where he remained until 1977, the year he was elected
president and CEO by the board of trustees of The Aerospace
Corporation in El Segundo, California. Aerospace is a federally
funded research and development center that operates in
support of national security, civil, and commercial space
programs.
During his tenure at Aerospace, Rechtin expanded the
corporationâs work on national security space programs and
continued its existing advisory role to the U.S. Air Force on
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EBERHARDT RECHTIN 201
project development for a variety of defense-related space
systems, such as GPS. Rechtin retired from Aerospace in 1987
and was president emeritus at the time of his death. After his
retirement, he said that if he was remembered for only a single
achievement during his career at Aerospace, he hoped it would
be for expanding career opportunities for women and minority
employees during his presidency.
That same year (1987), Rechtin was named professor of
engineering at USC, where he was a tireless advocate for
recognizing systems architecting as a distinct discipline; he
established the ï¬rst program in systems architecting within the
engineering department. Rechtin retired from teaching in 1994
as professor emeritus of electrical engineering and received an
honorary doctorate from USC in 2005. In 2007, the USC Viterbi
School of Engineering initiated an annual Rechtin Keynote
Lecture in honor of his contributions to engineering.
Rechtin was elected a member of the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE) in 1968. He was also a fellow of the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Institute of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member
of the International Academy of Astronautics, and the Institute
of Environmental Sciences.
He received numerous awards and honors during his career,
including the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal (1977); NASA
Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement (1965);
Distinguished Public Service Medal (1973), awarded by DOD;
the AIAA Robert H. Goddard Astronautics Award (1991) and
Aerospace Communications Award (1969); Pioneer Award from
the International Council on Systems Engineering; CalTech
Distinguished Alumni Award (1984); and the Navy Distinguished
Public Service Award (1983).
Rechtinâs services were often sought in an advisory capacity
because of his wide-ranging expertise. He was extremely
proud of his membership on the U.S. Air Force Scientific
Advisory Board and his service on advisory panels of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He also chaired
the Chief of Naval Operations Industrial Advisory Committee
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202 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
on Telecommunications and the Naval Studies Board of the
National Research Council.
Rechtin was the author or co-author of scores of scientiï¬c
and engineering technical papers during his long career. His
books include Systems Architecting: Creating and Building Complex
Systems (Prentice Hall, 1990) and (with Mark Maier) The Art of
Systems Engineering (CRC Press, 1996) and The Systems
Architecting of Organizations: Why Eagles Canât Swim (CRC Press,
1999).
An enthusiastic supporter of the arts and an accomplished
musician in his own right, Rechtin played the violin, piano, and
classical guitar. He loved chamber music and had participated
in chamber music groups since his college years. A great
improviser on the piano, he composed many pieces for the
enjoyment of his family. A complement to his musical abilities
was his considerable talent as a dancer. Rechtin was also an
outdoor enthusiast, conservationist, and nature lover, and he
enjoyed hiking in the High Sierras of California.
Rechtin was a longtime resident of Rolling Hills Estates,
California. He was a loving husband to his wife of 55 years,
Deedee, and a devoted father to their ï¬ve wonderful children:
Mark Rechtin of San Pedro, California; Andrea Rechtin of
Albany, California; Julie Rechtin of Aiden, California; Nina
Meierding of Ventura, California; and Erica Bauermeister of
Seattle, Washington.
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This is the thirteenth volume in the series of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and foreign associates. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased.

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